A New Beginning

I have decided to restart a long dormant blog. I am going to give it a go and post at least once a week.

I am going to use my voice to to speak my truth, what ever that may be. Right now my truth is in flux. We have a new president, and that scares the living hell out of me. He has and will say anything to keep the crowd, and he is dangerous to my very right to exist.

I am angry, sad, scared, and hurt by friends and family who do not know or see the ramifications of their actions. I watch as they hide behind their reasons to vote against my interest. I listen, as they do not listen to me. I am told to walk in their shoes, but there is no expectation for them to walk in mine. I will continue to speak, to rail, to rage against, to shout until my voice fails, until they understand. And if you think that I am whining, I am being ridiculous, a baby, you haven't lived my reality. So here it goes...


My first memories are sitting on the beach, alone, the sun warming my back, digging in the sand. I watched my family play around me in the water and on the sand. To this day I love the beach, the feel of the sun, water and sand. It reminds me of the warmth of a family that loved a boy who was always a little awkward, anxious, and sad. I was young then but I knew or felt that I didn't fit in. I sought out the warmth of my family, Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, who hugged and kissed and made me feel special. I could wrap myself in them and be safe, be secure, not worry.
Move that boy forward 10 years, he is 16 or 17, in high school. That scared little boy is now a young man who hates going to school. He sits in the bathroom every morning and worries about what his day will bring. Who will throw something at him, who will spit anger on him, or how he will be humiliated that day. He takes solace in the sisters that constantly protect him at school, and the few friends that offer him a refuge. He wants out, he is battered and scarred, he wants to run away from all of it. He comes home to his family, parents trying their best to protect him, sisters who love him but he "knows" see him as a burden, and a brother who he looks up to and wishes (and always will wish) he was a little more like. He leaves school and runs, it hurts but he runs. He runs from a family that he isn't sure will accept him.
That young man will try to commit suicide because of those scars from high school, he will blame it on a lost love but it is because he he hasn't accepted who his is. He will go to counseling, he will take pills to stabilize himself. He will break ties with people, he will remake ties, he will fix himself. He now has a core of friends who sometimes infuriate him but, ultimately, love and support him. He will find a refuge build it and hope that it is stable. He will have his ups and downs, he still struggles with depression and anxiety.
He has, 20 years later found someone to love, he has come to the end of a hard fought battle to accept himself. His family is still a refuge, the offer him love and acceptance. His people have won many hard fought battles. He feels secure.
Then there is an election which most of the time doesn't bother him much, he know usually that both people have the best interest of the country at heart. Then the anger and hatred that comes from some of his family and friends, his refuge has become a unsafe and destructive. The person elected threatens to take his and many others security. People tell him that he is safe they love him but they used their vote bring his whole world to a halt. He tries to tell them that they have begun the destruction of his world, this world he has fought his whole adult life to build. His hard fought battle now gets harder, his safety has already been threatened. He has had things thrown at him, been punched, been spit on, been called a fag, faggot, queer, homo, every name they can throw his way. He thought that was in his past...it may now be in his future again.

Peter and the Right Words

"No one who loves you cares about that"

Thank you Peter

listening

Roll Away Your Stone
Mumford and Sons 

Roll away your stone, I'll roll away mine 
Together we can see what we will find 
Don't leave me alone at this time 
For I'm afraid of what I will discover inside


'Cause you told me that I wouldn't find a home 
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal 
And all the while my character it steals


Darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? 
And yet it dominates the things I see


It seems that all my bridges have been burned 
But you say, "That's exactly how this grace thing works" 
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart 
But the welcome I receive with every start


Darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? 
And yet it dominates the things I see
Darkness is a harsh term, don't you think? 
And yet it dominates the things I see


Stars hide your fires, these here are my desires 
And I won't give them up to you this time around 
And so I'll be found with my stake stuck in this ground 
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul


Hide your fires, these here are my desires 
And I won't give them up to you this time around 
And so I'll be found with my stake stuck in this ground 
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul


And you, you've gone too far this time 
You have neither reason nor rhyme 
With which to take this soul That is so rightfully mine

Trouble

I wrote out a post before this, about a specific part of the one event that seems to have changed my life. I am not in a place where I can post it but I did write it and it did help me to feel better. I am still troubled by what has happened but I know I can move on. I will just need some help.

I love Cat Stevens, I am pretty sure that anyone who really knows me knows this fact about me. These are the lyrics of his song "Trouble" from the movie Harold and Maude. Which by the way is one of the most beautiful love stories ever filmed, it is everything that any love story needs two people find each other, in many ways in spite of what the rest of the world wants for both of them. It is a story about the fact that love is not found it is uncovered and unwrapped like a gift, and sometimes it is just what you need or want, sometimes not. Sometimes you lose it, and need to learn to move on with out this thing that seemed to help define you and make you and life better. 

"Trouble" 

Lyrics by Yosuf Islam (Cat Stevens) 

Trouble

Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me

I've drunk your wine
You have made your world mine
So won't you be fair
So won't you be fair

I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there

Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery

I've seen your eyes
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me

I'm beat, I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
Too shocking to see

Trouble
Oh trouble move from me
I have paid my debt
Now won't you leave me in my misery

Trouble
Oh trouble please be kind
I don't want no fight
And I haven't got a lot of time

tick...tock...tick...tock...

Time...tick...tock...tick...It seems like my life as of late is revolving around time, the lack of it, to much of it, time moving to fast, getting away from me, my internal clock ticking away, yearning for it. 

I have been very tired lately, I want to sleep all the time. It seems like I never get enough time to sleep, I go out on my lunches and find a place to park my car to eat and nap. And I am still tired. I go to work and the clock ticks away the hours of my day and I am tired. I go to bed early and wake up late and I still want more time in my bed to sleep. Why am I tired?

I am yearning for something. It has come up in many of my conversations, I am getting older, and I see it all around me. I have always wanted to be a father, it is among only a few other dreams I have never really let go of. I pretend to, I put on a show about not wanting to have a child, but I do. Time is not being kind to me in this respect, I am getting older, I feel like I am running out of time. My choices have narrowed my path and inexorably that path and those choices funnel me to an end with out children. I enjoy my nieces, nephews, and children of friends but they are not my own. I will never have the same feelings for them as their parents do. I will not know the joy and fear that it is to be a parent and I want to.

I am getting older and this time around my birthday brings out the melancholy in me. I feign unconcern. I do not mind my birthday, it does not bother me, this is untrue. I tend to think of loss around this time of year. Summer is sighing its last warm breath in the north and Autumn is descending with is golds, reds, and grays. Autumn seems natural here, summer so ephemeral.  There is loss in this season, grandfathers, uncles, grandmothers, friends and brothers. And I sit on my porch wishing I were asleep. Not unhappy but not happy either, a middle ground of here. I am just here....listening to my watch tick away the seconds... 

Well it has been a while...hasn't it

Well I realize that I have not posted to my blog all summer long. It has been a bit busy this has been a summer and a year of ups and downs.  I have had many fun and exciting adventures and some frustration.  I will focus on some of the good times, my father after too many years has finally retired. We had a couple events for the retirement including a party where my current and former partner showed up. That was a bit of crazy let me tell you but it went well. We also went to a Tigers baseball game, where the Tigers won against the Rockies. My brother Sean just got married in a beautiful and very sweet wedding. It has been an overall great summer if a hot summer.

A bit of side note since it is on the news, I have noticed that up to this point neither President Obama or Mitt Romney have visited the victims of the Sikh Temple shooting. I am sorry this is an obvious case of domestic terrorism and far scarier than anything else that has happened this summer and needs to be addressed.

On the negative side I have eaten just about everything that has come across my path, and stopped running due to the ridiculously hot weather. I must refocus and eat better, I am keeping a food journal and going to start exercising again. I am not going to post my food choices on my blog because that would be intensely boring.

Well here is to a renewed blogging....

more promises made and broken

Ok so i am not going to make any promises to blog more...I am just going to try. I am still working on this whole follow through thing plus I was working out at the gym at night leaving little time to eat and blog. Life as been a bit crazy but good.
I am now on the second book of "A Song of Fire and Ice", "A Clash of Kings", It is fantastic book. I am not a huge fan of fantasy, I am of sci-fi but not fantasy. I know, many say what is the difference? There is a difference trust me. But I do really like these books they are a lot of fun really, the characters are interesting and well drawn, the story lines are great. He is also not afraid to kill off characters that you like and the allow characters you hate to live, also to bring you around to characters you didn't like at first.

I have discovered twitter I like it...I don't love it...like Facebook, Myspace, and blogger I don't always have the attention span to really get excited about it but I like it.

In serious news...Todd and my friend was diagnosed with melanoma (stage 4 it would seem)..I have not really been able to process the fact that someone I know has stage 4 melanoma. I have been putting off having the doctor take off a few moles. One of which is on my face, the one on my chin to be precise, I have an attachment to it. But I am worried this would be friend number two with moles levels comparable to mine, Erin and now Terry. Erin pointed out that my doctor has not had me looked at by a dermatologist, I believe that I will bring that up to him.